Bill Maher: 'We've passed the Rubicon with 'Death to America' chants on US soil'
"Real Time" host Bill Maher said it's time to draw the line when it comes to chants of "Death to America" on American soil.
On Friday's "Overtime" segment on YouTube, Maher addressed the protesters in Dearborn, Michigan, who shouted "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" during an International Al-Quds Day rally earlier this month.
"Can I talk about American propaganda? Because there was a rally in Dearborn, Michigan, it's a large Muslim population, [there were] chants of ‘Death to America.’ I feel like we've passed something here," Maher said.
"The left has gotten mad at me for many years for talking about Islam. I try not to do it too much because I know it makes them go crazy, and I've made my point. But it needs to be talked about now. When you start chanting ‘Death to America’ in America."
In a conversation with guests Piers Morgan and British journalist Gillian Tett, Maher pointed to quotes from anti-Israel activist Takek Bazzi, who headlined the hour-long rally in front of the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn.
BIDEN CAMPAIGN: WE DON'T WANT THE VOTES OF 'DEATH TO AMERICA' PROTESTERS IN MICHIGAN
In video shared by the Middle East Media Research Institute, Bazzi tells the crowd at the event that the "Death to America" chants were in honor of former Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini.
"Imam Khomeini, who declared International Al Quds Day, this is why he would say to pour all of your chants and all of your shots upon the head of America," he told the crowd.
"He's the good guy now?" Maher said of the former Iranian leader.
"I've heard this before. Not coming from America but…now it's coming from inside America? Sorry. Got to talk about this again," Maher continued.
Maher then highlighted a separate portion from Bazzi's inflammatory speech, where Bazzi referred to the United States as "one of the rottenest countries that has ever existed on this Earth.
"It’s not just ‘genocide Joe’ that has to go," Bazzi told the crowd, "it's the entire sytem that has to go."
"No, it doesn't" a fed up Maher replied, prompting a loud applause from his audience.
"This is America for crying out loud. And there are people who will see this and say, oh, he's a conservative now. I have not changed. I have always liked America and thought death to what was bad."
Maher posted the segment on X, formerly Twitter, with the caption,"We've passed the Rubicon with chants of ‘death to America’ on American soil.
Bazzi's rhetoric was condemned by the White House and by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud publicly denounced the chants, calling them "unacceptable and contrary to the heart" of Dearborn.